Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> I was simply putting forward a provisional hypothesis.

fair enough

> I found that this explained all of Joel's list (consonants only) except 
> for this one case. At this point we have two alternatives: one is to 
> refine the hypothesis, perhaps along the lines which you suggest; the 
> other is to write off occasional exceptions as due to some kind of 
> corruption.

With my background in logic, I always hesistate to dismiss anything as an 
error. Quite often, what seems wrong or insignificant, turns explicable and 
meaningful. Thus, the example of Kturah - Hetturah is very instructive, and 
demonstrates quite a few phonological rules. It showed to me a much simpler 
way to explain the difference between vocal and silent shcwa than I 
suggested before: namely, all schwas result from reduction of vowels; 
pretonic schwas lose their sound to the accented vowel, antepenult schwas 
preserve their sound.
This, by the way, helps us to determine that Sephardic accents, not 
Ashkenazic are correct.

> But my point remains, that my provisional hypothesis accounts for nearly 
> all of the changes without requiring that Hebrew pronunciation has changed 
> greatly since LXX times.

Absolutely.

Vadim Cherny